‘Heroes’ 3.13: A freaking mess ends with a freaking mess

“I can’t believe this guy still blogs about us.” (All pics from here.)

Shark jumped. Fridge nuked. Mission accomplished. If ever there was doubt or hope, fughetaboutit. “Heroes” has completely lost it.

The unlucky 13th chapter in our inane Heroic super soap on powered Kool-Aid every character but Noah and Mr. Muggles is drinking wraps the show’s third volume with so much slipshod plot-thread tying and failed housecleaning it’s downright embarrassing. If ever you needed a reason to dump on this show or quit it completely, consider “Dual” your Get Out Of “Heroes” Card.

So much is so wrong with this episode and its execution. Like…

Only the disposable powers died.

Sure, the show streamlined by dispatching fear-powered Knox and presumably Claire’s firebrand-biomom Meredith, blue-blazing Flint and puppet-master Eric Doyle. But why oh why oh why did Mohinder have to not only survive but heal and hook up with Tracy later? What, so he can torture us with more sanctimony and scuttled lab work?

Killing off the scrubs that don’t show up on the “Heroes” promo art is predictable at best. Killing off Mohinder or some other significant character would have returned this show to its first season high stakes. And face it: Mohinder’s comeuppance for his previous power-mad actions would have shown just how bad that formula really is.

But this show obviously wasn’t going that route because …

Even Ando has powers now.

Irredeemable Mohinder aside, did it have to come to Ando taking the formula so he could turn into a super battery and supercharge super speedster Daphne to conveniently travel back in time to retrieve a powerless Hiro from the past, all in the same ep? Pretty unbelievable and ridiculous, even for this show.

But that’s what happens when you write yourself into a corner. Remember, big bad power-sucker Arthur Petrelli stole Hiro’s powers and the catalyst, so Hiro couldn’t scrunch his face back to the present.

What should have happened? How about Art just takes the catalyst from Hiro’s mom and kills her just before Hiro can save her? Or how about everyone who lost powers to Art gets them back with his death? (He did have the weird glow after taking that bullet to the head, remember?)

Yes, Ando’s new power ties in with Hiro’s future experience with Ando. But this whole switching roles thing (now Ando’s powered and Hiro’s powerless) just doesn’t look fun to me. Besides, a powered Ando doesn’t make the specials really special. And since the formula’s ripped to shreds, it looks like Ando’s stuck with his new power-boost abilities and Hiro’s stuck without the abilities that made his character so charming. ZZZZZ

Of course, if you think that dynamic duo just got screwed up, how about …

Nathan’s a d-bag and Peter’s a hypocrite. Oh, and Peter’s a d-bag and Nathan’s a hypocrite

Nate showed no believable signs of really intending to fix his dad’s vision because he ends up aiming to round up and contain all the powers, which reminds me a lot of Senator Robert Kelly with the X-Men. As for “noble” Peter, he powers up to save Nate and his own skin when Nate could have just flown away on his own or maybe even saved Pete in the bargain. Now both brothers can fly while sinking to new levels of putrid Petrelli-dom. Yeah, they both kind of suck now.

Speaking of new levels of suck …

Sylar just can’t do menacing.

The bloody Primatech lockdown to show Claire, Noah, Meredith and Angela as monsters just didn’t measure up to the menace intended for Sylar in this episode, even with Sy briefly taking over Mo’s job as boring voiceover guy. Hell, the more Sy taunted in this ep, the less sinister he became. Shame his character couldn’t evolve into something more … jaded. But at least we now know he’s not a Petrelli. Because that would have really made him some sort of screwed up.

BTW …

Claire and Noah running away from Meredith going boom may be the silliest, most cliché action scene ever in the history of this show.

Because it is.

So …

“Fugitives,” the next volume of “Heroes,” doesn’t vie for our retinas until February. Just as well, because this show really needs some time to lick all its self-inflicted wounds.

One can only hope “Fugitives” makes up for the big ball of suck that was the third volume with a big bad that doesn’t get tremendous build-up only to drop with a simple gunshot despite apparent deity-like power. At least Nate as that new big bad shows promise.

And that’s the only reason (seriously, the only reason) I’ll even bother to say…

To be continued …

— My e-mail and my Twitter page also injected the dreaded formula. The former got supersonic burps and the latter developed a high-pitched nasal whistle. Now all they do is drink club soda and eat wasabi all day so they can break windows.